eye2eye -
I believe that the stats quoted by 'North West Business Desk' are those reported by MAG themselves, ie. not the numbers produced by the CAA.
The methodology employed by the CAA in compiling passenger statistics makes sense in terms of the way their data is used for market research. The CAA is interested in 'aviation intelligence' ... identifying underlying market trends. Quantifying the number of passengers booking seats on a particular route, assessing the economic viability of routes and carriers. Diverted passengers distract from the usefulness of data compiled for the primary purpose of economic analysis. If the CAA, or a party using their data, wish to evaluate the economic performance of a route such as MAN-HEL, then throwing in a random widebody diversion or disregarding three days worth of flights which diverted elsewhere due to weather can only distort the value of that data as an analytical tool. Correctly calculating underlying demand for the route is a far more useful statistic for this purpose than a post-disruption random number count.
Airports own stats are produced with different priorities in mind. How many passengers actually used the airport in reality? How much was collected in user-charges? How does this correlate to spending in the shops and restaurants on site? Are terminal facilities closely matched with real levels of demand? For them, it is important to record the actual number of customers through the door rather than recalculating what the revised total might have been under ideal conditions.
The CAA stats and those produced by airports almost never tally. The airport versions produce the most accurate assessment of actual passengers through the door. The CAA numbers offer the best data-set for analysing underlying business trends with random chance anomalies (such as diversions) filtered out. The value of each approach to data assessment is clear in the light of how the numbers are subsequently used by different interests.
MANFOD - I agree with you that a forecast 9.7% increase in seats suggests a generous contingency to mitigate negative setbacks. For the record, I do expect MAN to successfully achieve the throughput required to surpass 23M during this calendar year. Nevertheless, we do need to be mindful of setbacks. It would be unsurprising to me if the number of passengers forfeited as a result of last weeks weather disruption represented 1% of potential November throughput in the final reckoning. 1% is is roughly 8 hours worth of an average day's traffic. We saw mass cancelation of the FlyBe programme, plus cancellations from KLM, BAW and others over approximately three days. And very little in the way of incoming mitigating business. The scale of lost passenger flows to Egypt remains to be quantified, but we are talking about a staple winter-sun destination heavily-promoted by the leading tour operators. The Lufthansa issues are smaller scale but unresolved and ongoing. All these factors must be taken into account in our calculations. They will erode away a proportion of the contingency which MAN is relying on for growth.
In answer to your 'splash and dash' question, I don't know how MAN accounts for these passengers. Clearly they don't pass through the terminals. And presumably no per head fee is levied for use of the terminal facilities?